


I Suppose I Should Thank You

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Established Relationship, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Torture, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Minor Character Death, One Shot, Origin Story, Pre-Canon, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-18 22:47:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3586839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim's parents find out he's gay, and they respond like many others: They kick him out of the house. </p><p>They didn't realise the magnitude of the mistake they've made.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Suppose I Should Thank You

Jim is sixteen. Sebastian is nineteen.

It's raining.

It's raining, and when Sebastian opens his front door, Jim is standing outside, in the rain, soaked to the bone and carrying a duffel in his pale hands.

'Can I stay the night?' the Irish teen asks quietly, his eyes on the floor.

Seb stares. He stares because Jim never asks; he just takes.

'Well?'

'Yeah. Yeah, sure, of course,' Seb says, jolted out of his daze. 'Fucking Christ, Jim, get inside before you freeze to death.'

Jim doesn't need more than that. He practically runs inside, dripping water all over Seb's carpet and throwing his bag to the side in disgust. The bathroom door slams shut with a violent bang, shaking the wall as Seb stares after him.

Then he picks up Jim's bag and takes it to his bedroom, where he starts separating it into wet and dry piles of clothing. He pauses for a moment at the garment bag folded underneath the wads of shirts and trousers, lifting it out with care.

The shower is running loudly in his bathroom. He opens the bag and pulls out a pristinely kept suit, black and sleek and not anything he's ever seen Jim wear before. He frowns at it before he zips it back into its bag and lays it across the bed.

Jim comes out, still dripping, but shirtless and with a towel wrapped tightly around his waist. He pays no attention to his possessions spread on the bed; instead, he sits on top of them, looking intently at nothing on the opposite wall.

Seb watches him. He lights a cigarette.

Then Jim begins to speak.

'It was an amateur mistake. A slip-up. I meant to tear it, burn it, leave it somewhere where they would never find it. . . But I wasn't thinking, it was too insignificant. . . Remember when we were in the park, last month?'

Seb nods. 'You were spouting something about the Tower Ravens that I wasn't really paying attention to, because we were alone and-'

'Yes,' Jim cuts off, 'I know, I was there. I took pictures. Had them developed. I didn't want to lose them; horribly sentimental of me. Me mam must have been cleaning while I was at school, because she found them.'

Sebastian swallows. Jim's accent is slipping through. He knows not to touch Jim, not when he's like this, because he'll probably lose the hand. Anyways, neither of them are very touchy-feely.

'They kicked you out?'

Jim glowers at him. Then Seb catches it, that flicker of emotion behind the threatening abyss of Jim's dark eyes, and Seb sits down next to him in silence.

They stay like that for a while.

'You're welcome to stay,' Seb says quietly. 'Tonight, tomorrow night, however long. My father's paying the bills while I'm gone.'

Jim looks at the sand-coloured, standard-issue army bag resting against the wall, flat and unpacked, but waving its foreboding meaning in his face.

'Right.'

More silence.

'I'm sorry,' Seb says. 'It's my fault for-'

'No,' Jim cuts off. 'No, it's not your fault.' He glares at his feet. 'It's their's. The don't know what they've done.'

Seb moves closer. Jim doesn't react.

'What are you going to do?' Seb asks quietly.

And Jim begins to smile.

'What I've always planned on doing,' he says. 'The base plans are secure. All I have to do is tap the first domino, and they'll start to go down around me. Then, I'll start building.' He grins, his eyes darting to the garment bag. 'And their faces when they realise the elusive and powerful Moriarty is a kid in a suit! Right before I make my point, right before I drive the knife in. . .'

Seb makes a strange noise. Jim looks up at him challengingly, his eyebrow raised.

'What is it, Moran? Am I scaring you?'

Seb chuckles.

'No, Jim,' he says lowly. 'You're terrifyingly sexy.'

Jim snorts and falls back on the bed. He snaps his fingers. Seb hands him his cigarette, and the teenager takes a long pull on it, blowing smoke haphazardly into the air.

'Hardly appropriate, my dear,' Jim comments. 'I was just disowned by my family for being gay. Don't you have any thoughts for my fragile, adolescent state of mind?'

Seb grins rakishly down at him.

'If there's one thing you aren't, it's fragile.'

Jim puts out the cigarette on the bedside table, leaving burn marks scattered on its pristine surface before he tosses it aside and shoves his things off of the bed, landing on top of Seb's lap with a terrifying grin across his face.

'You're right,' he says gleefully. 'A minor inconvenience, it is. But now, there's no excuse for me not to. . .'

'Gonna finish that sentence?' Seb asks wryly, his hands landing on Jim's warm thighs.

'Don't think I need to,' Jim says. 'Let's make mammy and daddy weep, darlin'.'

And he crushes his lips against his lover's, and that's the end of it.

* * *

 

It's his birthday.

Jim is seventeen, Sebastian is nineteen, and Jim's face is plastered on light poles and missing child bulletin boards around his old neighbourhood.

The date on the poster is from weeks before, but worse, more incriminating, is the date of birth, age, height, weight, eyes, hair, last seen wearing ___. . .

He scoffs at the words 'endangered runaway.'

James may be in the company of an adult male, it says. Accompanying male is white, 18-22, 6'0, short blonde hair-

He pulls the poster off of the post in disgust and crumples it, driving both it and a dagger through the wood of his parents' front door with a dull thud.

Sebastian is clear. Deployed in Afghanistan with a grin on his face and a gun on his shoulder. He who dares, wins, he had called back to his stony faced lover.

The posters disappear overnight. Any attempt to put them back up is foiled, over and over again, until they stop.

* * *

 

Jim is 21. Sebastian is 24.

Jim is 21, barely legal in America, and he has thousands of strings in his hands, lazily pulling them to watch his puppets dance across the world. His smile is bright and cruel, his eyes alight with sadism, and his fingers coated in layers and layers of dried, flaking blood.

It's been five years, and his lover, his tiger, his sniper, with his scars striped across his cheekbone and torso, his tattoo curled around his arm and collarbone, his crooked smile, and his violence, calls to him from the door.

'I found you someone.'

Jim makes an annoyed sound.

'I don't care. I'm busy.'

The sound of Seb's rifle hitting the ground doesn't faze him.

'Think of it as a birthday present,' Seb says, leaning over the back of Jim's chair. 'We both know you enjoy the taste of revenge.'

That catches his attention.

'Didn't even realise it when he came to me, begging for help, "please, can you ask Mr. Moriarty to fix it for me," Seb explains. 'Mind you, I wouldn't have actively searched them out, but the opportunity was too good.'

Jim looks up at him, his eyes wide. 'You found...?'

Seb opens the door for him. He steps into the shadows, watching, waiting for the reaction. The door shuts behind them with a click, and the man at the window jumps.

‘Oh, please,’ the man begs, eyes wide as he looks at Sebastian, ‘My wife and I, we’re in serious debt. They’ll kill me if they catch me. Help me get away. I’ll give you anything.’

Jim stares at him. Sebastian locks the door behind them.

‘Wrong man,’ Seb says. ‘I’m just the messenger.’

There's a beat of tense silence.

‘Smart, coming to me,’ Jim croons, his voice high pitched and laughing.  ‘You’ve heard about what I can do, then. Good. The world is getting around. My voices whispering, promising salvation, if only you’re willing to go a little dark.’ He grins sharkily. ‘But that isn’t why you’re here, Mr. _Moriarty_ , those types of cases are far too dull for me.’

He laughs, a whooping peal of sadistic pleasure, when he sees the look of shock and terror on his father’s face when he steps into view.

‘Now, isn’t this exciting!’ he crows. ‘Look at you, ready to get on your knees and beg like a dog! I don’t suppose you would have known that the proper way to ask for Moriarty to lend his hand is to ask, “please, Jim, will you fix it for me to disappear,” no, no, you wouldn’t have connected the most obvious dots: Moriarty, who shares your last name, whose influence began after you lost your son! No, because you insisted on calling me _James_ , you and Mother. Well done, Sebastian, catching him for me.’ He beams at his sniper. Seb smirks back.

His father is speechless.

‘Who would have thought,’ he continues softly, stepping closer, ‘that the little Irish, Catholic boy, with his slight lisp and his big brain, who was _gay_ and an abomination to his family’s name, would be so much more than that? I suppose I have to thank you, Father, because if my things hadn’t ended up on the doorstep that evening, when you spat in my face and told me I was no son of yours because I like men, I most certainly would not be where I am today...’

He’s up in his father’s face; his father, who looks like he’s about to faint.

‘I once killed a boy because he laughed at me,’ he murmurs. ‘Remember Carl Powers, Daddy? I drowned him in a pool because he called me names and made fun of me one time too many. Something so small could drive me to such measures? What do you think I’ll do to you?’

His father tries to run. Sebastian has a gun pointed at him in half a second.

‘Ah, and how could I forget?’ Jim coos. ‘Sebastian here owes you something too, after the insults you spat in my face when you saw his face, the good for nothing kid who lived down the street. Tell me, Seb, how many kills did you get in Afghanistan?’

Seb smirks. ‘I don’t know, Boss, I lost count.’

‘Tell a boy he’s not human if he’s homosexual,’ Jim croons. ‘And you make him start to believe it. But this time, you made him more than a man. You’ve made his name something to remember. Sebastian, darlin’, let me borrow your mobile. It’s time to give my poor mother a call.’

* * *

 

Caitlin Moriarty is 48 when she picks up the phone on a fateful Sunday afternoon.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello, Mam!’ James says gleefully. ‘Just thought I’d give a call home. It’s been so long.’

In the background, a man starts screaming.

* * *

 

James Moriarty Sr.’s death is ruled a gang homicide. His wife’s suicide is deemed to be linked by grief.

They are survived by James’s estranged siblings, as in their wills, no heir is mentioned.

And on his throne of guns and crimes and death, Jim Moriarty laughs.

He is 22. Sebastian is 25.

And the world is their oyster. Weak, succulent, and shivering with anticipation. . . begging to be eaten.


End file.
